


A Pirate's Life

by orphan_account



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Fastred Fairbairn, Hobbits, M/M, Male Protagonist, POV Alternating, POV Male Character, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Pirates, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, elanor gardner - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-04
Updated: 2007-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-09 07:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frodo's a pirate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Pirate's Life

**Author's Note:**

> Surprisingly enough, it's not crack, just weird and fluffy.

_1421_

Frodo has been three weeks on _The Serpent _and he's beginning to get used to it. He hasn’t been sea-sick for the last two and a half weeks. The captain says that’s the fastest he’s ever seen a landlubber get over the sickness. He says Frodo’s a born seaman.

They made him sweep the deck, and fetch and carry and play the flute. His skin burned in the sun on the first week, but the stinging went down, and the red is now turning to tan. Every moment on the deck he breathes air as bright and alive as sunlight.

He should hate them, he supposes. He saw the fight. Elves were badly wounded, at least – could as easily have been killed. Stork, the tall dark-skinned man whose hammock is to the left of his, carries two nasty scars across his belly, administered by Frodo himself. Frodo stands up on the deck, wipes sweat off his brow, and glances over to Stork, who's cleaning the pumps. The Man of Harad grins back at him. No malice.

This ship, The Serpent, now carries much of the Elven ship’s stock, and gold, and the headband of Galadriel herself – at least until they reach port.

When they do reach port, in another three weeks’ time, Frodo will have a decision to make.

He’s growing stronger every day. The air and the salt seem to be seeping into him, making him grow, fatten out, heal. It’s not Elven magic; it’s something greater.

They’ll be showing him how to steer the ship, tomorrow.

*

_Coast of Harlindon, 1476_

Fifty-five years. He was now 108 years old. There was a time he thought he’d never live to turn sixty. A few years after sixty, when he lay in agony below the deck, arm wrapped in bandages crying cut it off cut it off because he could feel the cold winding its way into his torso, he had been certain he would not see his sixty-sixth year. And again, at seventy-two, he expected his death when the ship reeled and began to topple, and old Stork was ripped crying under the hull, and the cold water hit him like whips of freezing fire. But here he was. 108 years old, this day.

He did feel the age, to be sure. He hadn’t been on a ship as anything but a passenger for decades. He found it ever more laborious to keep up with the time, now, when the season changes weren’t counted in voyages or tides anymore. Still, something drew him to the sea, always, and so it happened that he’d decide, every now and then, to take a trip to Dol Amroth, say, or to Lond Daer – to any place, in fact, which would require a long voyage by sea.

At first after quitting the trade he’d travelled richly – comfortable clothes, a money-chest and a servant with him, and the best inns for his stay. He’d found it didn’t agree with him much. At one time, he’d felt comfortable with fine jackets and watches, and the presence of someone else at his heel at all times – but that had been a long time ago. So now, he left his servant to care for his empty house, and while travelling kept only as much money on him as he could comfortably carry and defend; he found he needed only a little.

He sometimes still thought of paying his way with work, of grabbing the sails or the oars along with the sailors, but knew without asking how out of the question that would be – a thin, small, wizened creature such as him, and the sailors so tall and strong. The size and age hadn’t mattered once, not such a long time ago at all, and still every time Frodo smelled the salt sea he felt strong. The sea was his strength.

He had been captain once, for a while. He wasn’t too old for that. These kinds of thoughts went through his mind, while he watched the waves roll by, and listened to the ship’s creak, and the sailors’ cries and banter.

*

_Westmarch, the Shire, 1476_

It was assumed by inland hobbits - with the exception of Bucklanders - that the fear of water was a specific and natural trait in all hobbits. While this belief was still widely maintained long after the settling of Westmarch, evidence was beginning to mount to the contrary, as Westmarchers took to the waters comparatively quickly. They built fishing boats after designs brought by Buckland settlers and from farther off as well, from the countries of the big people. The sea offered plenty of good eating in an otherwise harsh land, and with these new skills the people moved from a state of nigh-famine (on hobbit standards, at any rate) to a continuous feast – and moved seawards, too, closer and closer the the coast, the better to fish in it.

It was a fair autumn afternoon when Mrs. Fairbairn, formerly Elanor the Fair of Hobbiton, stood by the roadside on the Tower Hills, a mile or so from the Undertowers. She shaded her eyes from the sun, the brilliance of which was multiplied by the white glint of the ocean to the west, beyond the nameless fishing village that had sprung up on the spot where Mithlond met the Lhûn. Her parents’ carriage was pulling laboriously up the hill, and she wondered if she’d remembered to stock up on hay and water for the ponies. She ran the last short distance to meet them.

“Shall I hop on of should I strap myself before the ponies?” she asked. “Poor Ted!” she added, taking the reins of the older of the two ponies and stroking his mane.

“Not even our hellos exhanged and the girl’s already telling us off!” Mistress Rose scoffed, then smiled gloriously. “Come, I’ll help you.” She hopped off the carriage and gave Elanor a quick hug before taking the reigns.

“I’m not so doddering yet I’ll let my wife and daughter do all the work!” protested Samwise, and so it turned out that all three walked the rest of the way, leading the ponies up the hill.

“Elfstan has become the quintessential tween,” Elanor confided, having learned far too many long words in her youth from all the books left behind by the legendary Bagginses. “Don’t expect him to have time for our aged mundanities.” She glanced at her father and smiled. “He’ll still take the chocolate, only now you have to leave it on his bed after he’s gone out with friends, or he’ll be embarrassed.”

Sam laughed. “Reminds me of one of our children. We had to hide her birthday present of a fairy story book under the pillow before guests arrived.” Elanor blushed.

Fastred welcomed them at the Undertowers to a blazing fire – pleasant enough for old bones, and it was commonplace at this time of the year for nights to turn chilly – and a table laden with delicacies. As the Fairbairns were nothing if not polite, greetings and groomings were kept as short as possible, and the ponies taken to the stables by a grumbling Elfstan, so as to let the guests sit down at the dinner table as soon as possible. Equally polite, the Gardners proceeded to demolish the feast.

“I do like your sea-salmon, Fastred,” Samwise put in between second and third helpings. “Nothing quite like that back home.”

“The village sure has grown,” Rosie mused, picking her teeth. “It’s spread out handsomely since the last time we visited.”

Fastred nodded. “It’s called a town, these days, though I’m not sure by which reckon.”

“A town! Have they a mayor yet, then?” Samwise asked.

“Looking for new work, Sam-dad?” Elanor laughed.

“No, absolutely not,” Rosie said firmly. “He’s retired now and all mine, and I shan’t share him with the rest of the Shire again.”

“I might have a look around,” said Sam. “See what they’ve done with the place. I haven’t seen such a young town before.”

“We could go and have a look about tomorrow. As for tonight, there’s an inn I could take you to,” said Fastred. “If you feel up to it, after all your journeying.”

“Oh, I might do with a bit of exercise,” said Sam good-naturedly. “Do me good after a long ride and a good meal.” Truth was, he and Mistress Rose were well rested, having but a few hours before stopped for a yammer and a bit of roasted coney at the camp of a group of rangers, who had recognised Samwise the Brave and were very willing to share their food and company in exchange of stories.

The afternoon had turned into a blue evening, night falling fast, by the time Sam and Fastred donned their cloaks and mounted their ponies. Elanor and Rose saw them off at the gate.

“If anyone offers him mayorship, grab him by the suspenders and drag him back, you hear?” Rosie told her son-in-law, who solemnly promised to do so, and the two set off down the hill, towards the recently lighted lamps of the nameless fishing-village-turned-town.

Town or not, the settlement wasn’t half the size of Hobbiton even discounting the wide-spread farmlanders and single dwellings that surrounded the heart of Sam’s home town. Considering it had sprung up in the last twenty years, though, it seemed quickly erected. There was still an early-evening bustle about the town as the closed stores – Sam spotted a hardware store and an apothecary – were swept and tidied for the night, and tired feet made their way towards the lighted inn. Many hobbits recognised Fastred, and greeted him with hellos. There was the distinct smell of gutted fish floating from a long building further on.

The most notable difference to Hobbiton that Sam spotted was that the village was entirely made up of low, round houses – not a hole in sight. “This isn’t good ground for smials,” Fastred explained. “There are a few newly-dug hobbit holes a little further away, but all the work and food are here, so I doubt there’ll be a large settlement there. On the Tower Hills, however, there’s some good farmland to be dug out on the hillside, so we expect more hobbits to move there as years pass.”

“I never thought I’d see such a thing – hobbits and water mixing so pleasantly!” Samwise said for the third time in Fastred’s memory.

”I remember my Mam saying she never thought she’d see a hobbit in armour, either,” Fastred said, for the first time in his memory, second in Sam’s.

“Well, it’s a good thing for the Shire she was mistaken,” said Sam, thinking of Merry and Pippin and the Battle of Bywater. “Though I would rather that never again became necessary.” Sam was silent for a while, then started. “Hold on – that isn’t a hobbit boat, is it?”

They had ridden almost through the town and rounded a corner to the marketplace, which yielded them a direct view across the Lhûn. On the black waters sat a tall ship, anchor and sails down, lamps lighted.

*

He had booked passage on a merchant ship bound up the Lhûn on a sentimental whim – to see the Havens again, just once to walk those stones – as well as to meet his mistress the sea again on one more coast-hugging passage. He hadn’t been this far north, this close to the Shire, for decades now. He hadn’t known.

“The King added this part of the land to the halfling country over twenty years ago,” said the first mate. He was of Bree heritage, and there was no need to specify which king - even in Umbar everyone knew who ‘the King’ was. “Thought you’d know, it being your own country.”

“It’s not my country anymore,” Frodo replied quietly. “This part never was.”

“The King also forbade any man to step within the borders of that land, but we can stock up here regardless,” the mate explained, pointing to two boats that were already taking off from the shore, heading towards the ship. “The halflings will take our whale oil as well as our gold.”

Frodo felt the sudden desire to back up, to go down below, into the shadows where he couldn’t be seen. There would be stories, if they saw him. There might be, regardless – he couldn’t tell the seamen not to mention him, not when ropes and boats were already being lowered for visitors. A strange hobbit – on a ship manned by big people!

For decades there had been only one place he hadn’t thought of visiting – one place he was afraid to visit.

“No big people allowed on the shore, eh?” Frodo mused out loud. “For once there is some use for my size. Let me down in one of these boats, will you?”

Never play with fate, never tempt it. Frodo knew this. Fate was calling him, was setting him up. He’d known a few instances like that. Fighting it had never paid.

*

The inn was called Coney &amp; Clam, and Fastred, it appeared, wasn’t a regular, though well known to the townsmen. They were invited to three tables as soon as the door closed behind them. “Let us get you in the taste of our spiced ale, you’ll never look to Hill hobbits’ weak drink again!” cried one young hobbit with handsomely furry feet propped up dandily on a stool.

Fastred laughed and declined each specific invitation politely. “Let me introduce my father-in-law,” he said instead, “Master Gamgee, former Mayor of Hobbiton, and a hero of the Battle of Bywater…”

Samwise blushed as a hubbub rose, and many hobbits jumped to their feet, swearing and hooting. “I’ll be!” said the furry youngster. “Isn’t this a night! Two heroes here on one night!”

“What do you mean, two?” Fastred laughed. Perhaps the lad thought Fastred had seen the fight.

“We’ve got another old Hobbiton fellow here, arrived earlier with a boat from the big people’s ship. Been travelling, he said. Has the look of a Bywater survivor...” The lad looked over his shoulder. “There he is at the – oh…” The corner store he’d been looking at was empty, the half-finished ale still frothing there.

Sam smelled a faint smell of salt and wet wood among the crowd of hobbits gathered round, and underneath it, something different, something familiar. Bits of memory flitted through his mind, bearing sharp old pains. A hand touched his arm, and he turned to see a hooded old hobbit, fingers of his right hand curled around his arm. All but one – the middle finger, which was missing. He saw a quiet smile, and then the eyes.

“Hello, Sam.”

*

Rose fumbled with the needle, and her hands began shaking. She put them and the torn cloak back to her lap.

“Are you all right, Mother?” The look on her mother’s face had startled Elanor. Rose’s eyes were wide open, her lips slightly parted.

“Oddest thing – what a strange thing,” Rose said, voice shivering. “I just felt – so happy, suddenly, and frightened too, like I could see the whole story of my life at once, from birth to death. Decades in a second, old Mr. Bilbo used to say when I was a girl, but he was talking about runnin’ and fightin’ and all those adventurous doings, and we were just sitting here quietly and pleasant as anything.”

“Well,” said Elanor a little uncertainly, “perhaps the fish was a bit undercooked.”

“It seemed right, though,” Rose said quietly. “Like everything was right where it’s supposed to be, and that that was the big and marvelous and frightening thing about it.”

*

“I didn’t catch your name, stranger,” said the vocal youngster.

“Smallburrow,” said Frodo quickly, looking sideways at the youth with that same quiet smile. “I haven’t been home for good many years now, and I believe Mr Gamgee here thought me dead already, hence the bug-eyes.”

“Say,” piped up a female voice with a distinct mid-Shire accent, “would that be the Bywater Smallburrows or the—“

“And I do believe I owe him an ale or three since the old days,” Frodo continued. “If you’ll excuse us?”

Frodo ushered Sam and Fastred to the corner table and his frothing mug, motioning the maid behind the bar for two more ales. He ignored the continued murmurs of the hobbits. It was surprisingly easy to fall into that old trick – let them talk, for hobbits will, whatever your conduct.

“Mr. Smallburrow, eh? I can’t say I remember y—“

“You came back,” Sam blurted at last, seated at the table, having been led to it like a sleepwalker. “It is you, isn’t it? Heavens! Oh heavens!” And he burst into tears.

“Oh, Sam!” Frodo abandoned any attempt at a discreet meeting and threw his arms around Sam’s shoulders, pressing their foreheads together.

Fastred didn’t know where to look. A glance over his shoulder revealed all eyes on them. He answered with a helpless shrug.

*

Fastred had been sent home without his father-in-law some hours before. Night had fallen and the stars come out. As the lights of the city were put out, their companion glow became brighter, a misty cloud across the dark blanket sky, and reflected on the waves. The two hobbits sat on a fallen tree not far from the city, on a low hill overlooking the sea.

They had been touching constantly since that first moment at the Coney &amp; Clam. Right now Sam was running his thumb over each of Frodo's fingers, one at a time, convincing himself that they were there, learning the new wrinkles, new scars over their familiar structure.

"You have been whole, these past years," Frodo said suddenly into the silence. "Haven't you?"

Sam hesitated. The true answer was no, but there was no need to say that. Frodo had left and taken half of Sam's heart. If he chose to think that meant he'd left Sam whole, well, perhaps that was what he needed to think.

"You should see my children," he said instead. "All my children. They've all grown so big now. Thirteen of them. You never even met your namesake." Sam smiled with faraway eyes, and the pride in it stung Frodo with a strange longing. "You should have seen them. That's what I thought every time a new one came along: Mr Frodo should be here to see us." Sam looked up at his companion again, the familiar jawline showing underneath the shadow of the hood. "But you've had other things to look at, haven't you, Mr Frodo?"

Frodo shivered slightly as he gathered Sam in his arms and held on tight, fingers digging into Sam's arms. "Yes," he said, voice breaking slightly. "But I wish I'd seen your children instead."

Sam's eyes felt dry. He'd cried these tears earlier that night. "Why didn't you come back?"

"I couldn't," Frodo whispered, and hoped Sam wouldn't ask why so, because he barely knew himself.

"Will you stay?"

Frodo was silent for a long time afterwards. His grip loosened, and he lay his head against Sam's shoulder, tired to the bone. "Oh, Sam," he said quietly, two syllables that returned to his lips now like old friends.

They had talked a lot that night, and they talked a lot more before the dawn. Frodo told Sam of far-off cities and of brush-ups against monstrous whales; Sam told Frodo of a string of unlucky birthdays in the Gamgee family, culminating in Goldy's seventh birthday and the baking incident that was still talked about around Hobbiton. "I wish you'd been there," each of them said in several occasions; and "I wish I'd seen that," in several others. As the eastern skyline grew luminous, Frodo broke another restful silence with, "I wish we'd been together."

Sam felt his heart breaking again at the suggestion, and barely managed to reply, "I wish that, too."

Frodo never did say whether he'd stay or not, but by the time the sun was up, it was clear to them both that he wouldn't. "My ship sails soon," he said, holding Sam's hands in his own in the growing light.

"My family expects me home," said Sam.

"I love you," said Frodo, and it seemed terribly insufficient.

Sam stayed on the low hill, on the log, as Frodo made his way back to town. He watched the rowing boat move slowly through the waters towards the ship, saw, barely, the small shape being lifted up on deck. That's when he stood up, feeling his bones creak, and started his way back to the Tower Hills.

*

_1482_

Sunlight turned white on top of the waves, blinding white, under a sky almost as bright. Frodo's skin seemed feather-thin, but burned brown, and his eyes had a white sheen over them. "I'm seeing the light already," he had said and smiled. Sam held his hand. He didn't let go as they climbed onto the elven boat, as they greeted its angelic captain, as the ship took off.

"I suppose this makes the ending in the Red Book true after all."

Sam nodded. "It's how the story should end."

They kept holding hands until the ship touched land.


End file.
